How happy are we with feature request and bug handling at Articulate?

I am interested in hearing what changes are being made at Articulate towards improving Storyline.
As a longtime user of the software, I expect issues as I'm developing. I'm not saying that I plan for issues, because I can't do that as I'm not sure where the problem(s) will pop up or what workaround will need to be implemented when Storyline doesn't work as expected. Which is frequently! 
While I appreciate many of the improvements Articulate has implemented, those improvements would be more effective if other aspects of Storyline weren't so buggy. 

Hi all,

First, by way of introduction, I’m Kerry Munz, CTO at Articulate. I joined Articulate in December 2022, and one of my first initiatives was a listening tour among our Engineers, Support Team, and other key internal stakeholders. A key takeaway from all those conversations was a need to bring Engineering closer to our customers. As engineers, we have a duty to know our customers and understand their challenges ourselves so that we directly experience the impact of our work and our choices.

Reading through this discussion, I hear the frustration and am saddened that you’ve lost faith in our communication, our quality, and are feeling abandoned. So, I would like the opportunity to listen and learn from you directly.

I’ll reach out to everyone who has posted in this discussion to schedule a group conversation to hear your concerns, ask and answer questions, and gather feedback from you on the changes we are making.

The use of buttons (particularly the Storyline default buttons) and states is an example of code due for an overhaul. On the Articulate forums, I see many issues regarding the quirks new users experience when using buttons - e.g. hover appearing above selected state (logged 2014).

In a Jan 2023 tip from longtime staffer on how to combine hover and selected states the Bibby cut and paste button states technique (logged 2017) is demonstrated as a workaround to override default button behaviour, along with other ideas that users tend to figure out themselves over time (such as changing the appearance of hover to make it more subtle when it appears above other states).

Tidying up the default button behaviours to be more consistent and straightforward to program  would lessen the random outcomes that new users complain about. I have several workarounds to the button issues and use whatever is required at the time, which often involves testing and editing until it works; if it simply worked consistently every time without looking for workarounds that would be an improvement. Users often create their own *.png buttons externally (in an image editing app such as Adobe Illustrator) then import, which I often do also for working around the look of default hovers without having to use extra triggers. I often do this because others may end up having to deal with these later when making future updates to my courses.

When I have logged tickets and provided files, the initial response has often felt like the representative responding is providing content from a how-to-guide rather than responding directly to the issue encountered. The improvement suggestions I have logged with Articulate result only in a vague and non-commital autoreply email in my inbox. Some fellow users I know have given up logging issues with Articulate, other than the occasional support ticket if they require assistance on workarounds that are not well documented on the forums already and have a tight deadline to meet.

They don't care because money is coming and Lucy gets her payment every month so no need to fix something that is working.

This is the kind of response from Articulate that we get and understand it to mean "it's not going to happen". This from a request for PX and % configurable corner radius on rectangles. The type we are familiar with through GD programs and CSS. I can't beleive this has to be classified as a "feature" request, and when it is finally introduce in another 5 years, they will release it with fanfare.

And this one for the bug switching between Slide and Layer templates, that has been around for as long as I can remember:

This second one is really frustrating, as I know this would have been reported several times and articulate would have been aware of it for years, but have chosen not to do anything about it. In the response, there is no update on when this bug might be fixed.

Storyline is the absolutely worst product I have ever worked with - directly followed by Rise. Bugs barely ever get fixed, much-demanded feature requests are ignored for years and there is absolutely zero transparency. 
On a side note I am always baffled how an extremely simple course preview can take so long to render, when Premiere can pre-render a video project in real-time on the same hardware. 

Im sorry for my choice of words... indeed you didnot bail. And i agree with you. Nevertheless there is alas little competition at least in Europe for Articulate. If you ever start a company developing competitive tools to Storyline, i will join :-)

Funny to see you popup ;-) Too bad you bailed the community, but i do understand.

One other pain point for us is the 32bit infrastructure that Storyline is built on. Tech advanced so much but Storyline is still working like 15 years ago.

I did think of you as I wrote this. I wondered if you might pop-up.

I'd be happy if it was cool aid. It's mostly brine.